In general, a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material has a silver halide emulsion layer which is sensitive to the three primary colors red, green and blue. A color image is reproduced by a method in which the three color formers (couplers) contained in the respective emulsion layers are developed into the colors having complementary color relations with the colors sensitive to the respective light-sensitive layers, a so-called subtractive color process. A color image obtained by subjecting a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material to photographic processing generally comprises an azomethine dye or an indoaniline dye which is formed by reacting an aromatic primary amine color developing agent with a coupler. The color photographic image thus obtained is not necessarily stable against light, humidity and heat, and storage under a high temperature and humidity conditions results in fading and discoloring of the color image and deteriorates image quality.
Such fading and discoloring of a color image is an almost fatal defect for a recording material. As the methods for removing these defects, the development of a coupler capable of providing a dye having a high fastness, the application of an anti-fading agent, and the application of a UV absorber for preventing the deterioration of an image by UV rays have been proposed.
Among the above measures, the prevention of the deterioration of an image by a UV absorber is very effective. It is known to add to the emulsion, for example, hydroquinones, hindered phenols, catechols, gallic acid esters, aminophenols, hindered amines, chromanols, indanes, ethers or esters obtained by silylating, acylating or alkylating a phenolic hydroxy group of the above compounds, and metal complex compounds.
These compounds are insufficient to meet the requirements of high quality images, though the effects thereof as an anti-fading and discoloring agents for a color image can be recognized. These compounds are unsatisfactory because they change hue, generate fog, cause inferior dispersion, or form fine crystals after the emulsion is coated.
Disclosed in JP-B-47-47245 (the term "JP-B" as used herewith means an examined Japanese patent publication), JP-A-52-150630 (the term "JP-A" as used herewith means an unexamined published Japanese patent application) and JP-A-55-6321, are the cases in which aniline compounds are used for preventing fading and discoloration of a color image. Further, the cases in which the aniline compounds are used for preventing fading and discoloration of a color image obtained from a magenta coupler are disclosed in JP-A-58-105147, JP-A-62-8148, JP-A-62-212652, JP-A-63-95448, JP-A-63-95450, and JP-A-2-34843.
However, the compounds described in the above publications do not sufficiently improve fastness of a color image since they do not adequately prevent fading but cause a high coloring of backgrounds. Further, some of them cause coloring (hereinafter referred to as fog) of an unexposed portion and prevent couplers from developing color, adversely affecting the so-called photographic properties.
Under such circumstances, a technique for controlling fading and discoloration of an image without badly affecting the photographic properties has been desired.